


in a quiet moment

by MagicalSpaceDragon



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-06
Updated: 2017-10-06
Packaged: 2019-01-09 16:51:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12280581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MagicalSpaceDragon/pseuds/MagicalSpaceDragon
Summary: Lotor's hit a roadblock. Acxa makes tea.





	in a quiet moment

"Lotor," Acxa's voice says somewhere behind him. He grunts in response but doesn't lift his head from the controls.

She sets something down next to him with a soft _clack,_ and he registers the faint, spiced smell of a drink he's too tired to place the name of just now. It was something Narti had picked up a while back; she'd smelled it from halfway across the marketplace and brought back a large canister to share. The locals drank it to promote alertness and focus. Lotor had discovered the hard way that, when taken at full strength, one of the chief ingredients was alarmingly toxic.

"I made it mild," Acxa, who had discovered at the same time that her body was alarmingly _efficient_ at processing said toxins, says wryly. He snorts.

"The medical bay thanks you."

Ezor might put a hand on his arm now. Zethrid would almost certainly say something gruff about needing to keep his strength up. If Narti were here, Kova would have already wriggled his way into his lap. Acxa, instead, sits down next to him and, from the sound of it, begins tapping at the schematics he's been agonizing over for the past several vargas.

"If you make any unauthorized changes to those, I'll be forced to put you on janitorial duty indefinitely," he informs her, deadpan. She huffs a laugh at him but puts her hands down.

She is blissfully silent and still as he gathers the resolve to sit up. When he finally does, she's examining the schematics- she'd zoomed out for a better look, it seems- with an attentive eye, chin rested on her interlaced fingers.

She still doesn't look at him as he halfheartedly pushes his hair out of his face from where it's slipped into disarray, or when he lifts the cup and sips at it carefully. He trusts her to prepare the drink for him, of course, but the initial experience had been one he's not particularly inclined to repeat. He watches her out of the corner of his eye as he drinks, glad for something besides a screen to occupy his attention.

Sometimes the weight of it all hits him without warning, staggers him. Sometimes he'll remember, all at once, what it was like to be a child; he'll remember that the Emperor is insurmountable, that the Empire is unyielding, that everything he's trying to build will eventually be destroyed and summarily erased-

He exhales and sets the half-empty cup down. Acxa glances at him, the edge of a smile on her lips. "Better?"

"It doesn't take effect that quickly," he chides, but smiles back at her all the same.

She tilts her head at the screen, a question.

He reaches over and zooms the image out the rest of the way. "I feel like I'm missing something obvious here," he admits, frustration from earlier resurfacing.

"Talk me through it," she suggests quietly. "Maybe I can help."

He does, and she can.

**Author's Note:**

> Thought it would be nice to just write something short and self-contained without planning it out ahead of time or stressing over it.
> 
> The toxin in question is definitely caffeine, by the way.


End file.
